


PROCESSION

by estike



Category: Nobunaga - Takarazuka Revue
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:35:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estike/pseuds/estike
Summary: In the turmoil of the Warring States, there is not a single moment to stop and take a breath of air. No victory is final. Great warrior or no, many share the same fate, in a never-ending procession.Akechi Mitsuhide starts his own.





	PROCESSION

He does not watch Nobunaga gut himself.

“Go. I will do it on my own from here,” he promises.

And Roltes knows what that entails. He knows too well that Nobunaga will bleed out slowly on his own, spilling his guts on the ground, and cursing himself for refusing Roltes’s help while he could still have it.

It is rare, even for the best breed of warriors to be able to commit  _seppuku_ perfectly. There is nothing less than dignified in asking for help. In fact, help is more than common, it is part of the procession. Showing enough courage to commit _seppuku_ is enough to warrant someone who will ease their suffering in the end.

Roltes would be more than honoured if he could be the one who puts him out of his misery. Nobunaga has already given him so much: this is the least he could return. Dignity in exchange of his own. Nobunaga wanted him to surpass his powers and to embrace the ambition of defeating him. He misunderstood his goals.

Probably Roltes misunderstood his very own goals, to begin with. There is no willingness in him to overcome Nobunaga, he is indebted.

This way, however, he can still slip past the fighting masses: Roltes is not a sort of man who would die for a lost cause. Unless, that lost cause was himself. (But he stopped being a lost cause a long time ago. Has it been nine years already?)

If Nobunaga wanted him to die for him to begin with, he would have asked to assist in the ritual suicide.

But no. He wanted Roltes to run.

So Roltes runs.

There is truly a lot he still has to do.

 

And yet, the person he runs to first is Hashiba Hideyoshi. He is away, with a handful of troops, on Nobunaga’s order. Clearly, Mitsuhide chose the right moment to attack: his rival could never arrive at Honnō-ji at the right time, even if he somehow got word of the insurrection.

He is not an awe-inspiring man. Yet, Mitsuhide seems to be afraid of him to the core that he decides to conspire while he is the farthest to reach. Roltes can see that. He may not be the most skilled on the battlefield but he is agile all the same. His wits quicker than his movements, he has any retainer around his little finger.

But now, Hideyoshi cannot stand straight and his eloquent words almost completely leave him. He saw him like this, once before. Nine years ago. That time guilt and shame burned his throat, and tears, his eyes as he stood there. It is different now, partly because Roltes is not distracted by his own remorse and sees only him, swallowing thickly, swallowing back his tears. Suffering.

“Mitsuhide…” he whispers, then repeats it in a louder voice. “This Mitsuhide…”

“He was destined to rise up sooner or later.”

“I know that! I’ve known him far longer than you have, Roltes. You forget we fought breast to breast for the lord Nobunaga’s cause. If anyone, I knew of the ambitions best that were budding inside his chest.”

His voice cracks, no matter how much he fights against it. He may yet not be mature enough to take the realm, Roltes thinks. But the only person whose shoulders were broad enough to make a difference is already gone. They cannot rely on him anymore. And Roltes? He wouldn’t know what to do with such a vast land, he realized that now already.

“But you come to me because you think I have the merit to unify this realm,” Hideyoshi says then, and his previous doubts are all gone. With his chin up, he stares at Roltes in a probing manner. “If you thought otherwise, you would have gone to _his_ side instead.”

There is recognition in his black eyes, dark as coal. Of course, he knows the nature of Roltes. (He only forgets that he had accidentally sided with the losing side once already.)

“You look at me as the successor of our lord Nobunaga.” Hideyoshi does not even wait for an answer. The ambition is already his. “I command enough troops to march on Mitsuhide. If I had a good number of my lord Nobunaga’s troops supporting me…”

“Dispatch me, and I call them to arms under your banners.”

There is an odd smile on Hideyoshi’s face. He walks to the sliding doors and stares at the crane pattern painted there for a while, answering the man while showing his back to him.

“I know you, Roltes. I know the man you used to be: who would sell a man out for even less than what Mitsuhide might have offered you now.” He turns, with determination in his black eyes. “But if I learned anything from my lord, it was to push forward, press your luck with your life on the line, and make the most out of it until fortune leaves you. Even if you betray me, it will have worth it to try for the realm. And, for the lord Nobunaga’s spirit.”

But Roltes is not about to betray him. That man is past him now, there is nothing left of his treacherous side. He will not join the fight, but he will help to arrange the preparations.

He and Hideyoshi leave in two separate directions the next morning in pursuit of the scattered Oda retainers.

 

He could hold it all for three weeks. Three weeks that felt like thirty years altogether. Mitsuhide thought he was ready to take up his lord’s burden but he needed to find out the hard way that he horribly miscalculated.

Only by now he understands that there was no man, not even Nobunaga who could take this task up and succeed. This was exactly the lesson he tried to teach them - and it all flew past by all the retainers. Instead of listening to him, they only wanted control. Deep inside, they all desired to be the one who completes Nobunaga’s vision: not only to be able to finally hold it all in their hands but to be the one who calmed the whimsical impetuousness of the warring states. United under one banner, this country would thrive. But that banner did not necessarily need to be the Oda coat of arms, Mitsuhide decided.

He thought he had enough strength, he thought he had enough merit. Only those who step on this path realize that no merit could suffice. The events will suck you in and your next step is not yours anymore: history forces you into a role and carries you towards the inevitable. You are either strong enough to remain, appearing to be in control, carried on the waves of the destiny of great men. Or you perish on the way.

“My lord!” The past three weeks, they were not idle. They advanced and pushed forward, towards uniting the realm under his very hands. He was not a lost cause, truly. No matter how shaky it was, he believed that he could succeed. Nobunaga’s heart must have been hesitant too, but as long as he shows a strong facade… “You must leave the castle this instant!”

“Leave the castle? We depart in the morning and march forward. There is no use…”

“Hashiba Hideyoshi is on the move. Many of the Oda retainers elected to support him. My lord, we are outnumbered. We are largely outnumbered. This is a final battle. If you do not leave the castle, your ambition perishes right here…”

“But if I leave the castle…” His dignity as a warrior will vanish all the same.

(And Hashiba may be a nameless upstart but he had never run away from a battle.)

“His troops will arrive before nightfall. You have no time.”

Mitsuhide, on the ruins of his own ambition, and in fear of his own life (of being murdered by no other than his old rival, his old comrade), runs from the castle.

It is not because he would be a coward. He proved himself on the battlefield many times. Under Nobunaga, he won many battles in his name. Against Nobunaga, he used his own technique: and burned him alive in a temple.

He wanted to finish the man off himself, to slay him, and ceremonially take over his destiny. But by the time he arrived, there was no life left in Nobunaga already. This did not stop Mitsuhide from claiming his death to himself: after all, his brilliant move forced him to end his life.

Now, as he tries to escape from the castle in disguise, getting away from the Hashiba-Oda troops, he feels his impending doom too close, too real. Who will claim  _his_ life, when it comes to that? When he wanted to share a fate with Oda Nobunaga, he never meant to share the means of his death. Surely not so early.

The villagers already know that he is a wanted man. How? Why? He cannot know. Why is it that Hideyoshi’s arms reach anywhere? Why is it that Hideyoshi can make anyone love him? Even his enemies couldn’t disdain him.

It is clear that they would never let him go.

“Just let me do it myself,” he asks them. “Let me have the dignity of a warrior.”

They at least know mercy of that sort and will not deprive him of the honour he already lost when he ran from the castle.

All this time he thought he was only getting stronger and stronger. Maybe he should have waited ten years, instead. (Then, Hideyoshi’s next move was always impending. Mitsuhide always feared the other would be the first to betray and he would lose his footing along the way if he did. Little did he know, he already lost his footing.)

“We do not have anyone who could help,” the men say. But they let him. They still have that much respect for a traitor and a coward in them to allow him the death of an honoured  _bushi_.

He should have stayed in the castle, without running away, like Nobunaga. He knows now. He should have waited it out and looked Hideyoshi in the face for one last time.

But running away, he hoped for a second that not only his life could be saved but his ambition too, from Hideyoshi’s suffocating grip.

“That is all right. I will do it on my own.”

Three weeks. His ambition lasted three weeks. He had the prospect of the realm for three weeks. It was a pain, but he cannot even be proud of himself. His only achievement is to assassinate his own master, sneaking up behind him, not even allowing him a minimal chance to emerge victoriously. He is the worst type of villain: it was never his own merit that allowed him to win.

He rushes out of the castle immediately, leaving the fight to process on its own, when he learns that Mitsuhide has already escaped. It does not matter.

It was destined in the very beginning that one of them will kill the other. Hideyoshi knew this since the first time they met. It was written in the lines of Mitsuhide’s face, it was present in the way an alien energy bit them on the skin each time they touched one another.

While he knew that his ambition of killing Nobunaga stemmed from a false vision (you may surpass your master without murdering him, after all), he never doubted that their last clash with Mitsuhide was destined to be. They learned from Nobunaga, learned how to see even beyond him. But they had to contest each other first, to decide which one of them had the virtue to continue on the path Nobunaga led them onto.

So when Mitsuhide leaves the castle, he knows he is winning the game.

But it is not enough. He needs to ascertain everything.

Claiming full victory over Mitsuhide will ensure the continued support of the Oda retainers. With a small detour, he will ascend to his master’s position, take up his name and continue to unify the realm. His vision will be Hideyoshi’s and Hideyoshi’s only.

He is not ready to fully take up his dream yet and deep inside he knows that. But he is ready to grow into the role. Ready to make the necessary steps.

It is now, or never.

 

Hideyoshi sets out alone, to look for Mitsuhide, and subjugate him. One way or another he will have to end him. End his life, or subjugate him and make him surrender.

If only Mitsuhide surrendered himself and his troops to him, his army could grow even larger. With the man on his side, he could surely take the realm. There would be nothing stopping them. But that is a foolish desire. That is not how their stories were written.

He always knew that it was destined from the very beginning that one of them should kill the other. And if it comes to that, Hideyoshi is not throwing his life and ambition away for the other.

The villagers point him to the body.

“My lord Hideyoshi, we did not have a sword to cut off the head,” one of them says. “He has been suffering for a while. We do not think he could continue.”

It is late in the evening, with the cicadas all screaming about and he can see his nostalgic appearance, kneeling in the grass, suffering from a clumsy, open wound.

“Leave him. Leave us,” he tells the villagers, with his chin elevated high. His black eyes are empty and his voice is almost toneless. “You did well.”

If Nobunaga taught him anything, it was to remain without sympathy on the battlefield and to never look back on his past. If he learned anything, it was the fact that his lord could never perfectly execute this rule either.

“Monkey…” His voice is cracking, barely audible and full of pain. But it is the same as ever. He could not mistake him for anyone else.

Mitsuhide can barely turn towards him. He still has his dagger at his stomach, stuck somewhere in between. The blade as Mitsuhide had always been: halfway, lost, unable to move, unable to be used to his full potential.

“Kumquat…” This time, the nicknames sound bitter and mournful on their tongues. They used to be playful once.

Hideyoshi draws his sword without any other words, ready to help an old friend out. He deserves dignity. But Mitsuhide begs to differ.

“No, no,” he cries out. “No, I do it on my own.”

“It would be over in a second.” He says this, but at the same time, he slides his sword back into the  _saya_. It is not like there would be any way to save Mitsuhide now and yet, it gives him that false hope.

“I don’t want it to be over so soon.”

He lowers himself down into the tall grass as well, facing Mitsuhide. They stare into each other’s eyes for a while, before Hideyoshi would move closer to him.

“Are you crying, Monkey?” Mitsuhide asks him, but this time it is clear that he does so as well. A short,  bitter laugh bubbles up from his throat.

His rival’s arrival is the exact thing that makes him push the blade further, opening his stomach wider. It was always like this. They could never afford to lose to one another.  He screams and falls forward but it is not yet done.

“I was always like this,” Hideyoshi tells him, weeping, crossing the rest of the empty space between the two of them. “You should know by now, Kumquat.”

He covers him with one of his arms, a weak, odd embrace, with his other hand on the top of Mitsuhide’s, on the haft of the blade, skin on skin.

They laugh at this, with Mitsuhide pressing his forehead to his shoulders. Hideyoshi truly loved to make those tears come at the most inappropriate times and yet, nobody ever held it against him. Maybe they thought it was only presentation.

“I would have given you Minō, or Owari, you know. Or any other castle you wished,” he whispers, gently guiding Mitsuhide’s hand. His other hand finds its way to the back of his head, caressing it fleetingly, and then just simply resting on it. “If you admitted defeat and submitted to me as a retainer.”

“That would be impossible.” He moans in pain and Hideyoshi could feel his hot blood all over his hand, spilling over to his own garments too. “You too must know that it would be more than impossible. We knew it from the beginning: only one of us would be able to take the realm… Any other scenario is just a pipe-dream. How I wished it would be me, in the end! I may have wished it too hard.”

He loses all his strength there and collapses finally into Hideyoshi’s arms.

“And yet, you did what I could have never done,” Hideyoshi tells him, as a farewell. “Attempted it twice, saw it through for the final time.”

On his own, he would have never accumulated enough strength to slay their lord Nobunaga. On his own, he would have never grown this strong. Without a rival, without a supporter, a friend, a comrade… He may have not reached these heights. In order for him to become the man who marched on a castle and forced his enemy into suicide by only the number of his troops, he needed Mitsuhide.

“Yet, you proved yourself to be the better warrior, now.”

“I always had my unfair ways.” He is cackling, now trying to hold his comrade up with two arms below the man’s underarms, both on their knees. But they both know that the end is too close now.

Mitsuhide musters enough strength to lift his head up, separating his brows from Hideyoshi’s shoulder and look into his eyes for one last time. The grey colours of dusk dim the tortured lines on his face.

“I can recall… I can still recall the days we spent as brothers.” There is only a stray tear in his eyes as he says this. Then, his voice gets more powerful. “Stop crying for once and all, Monkey and pull yourself together. Your ambition has never been this close to you. Have some dignity!”

He weeps, with Mitsuhide’s body in his arms, until the night completely falls.


End file.
